GOOD DESIGN 2009

The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies jointly announce the winning buildings and product designs from a special edition of the GOOD DESIGN™ Awards program for 2009.

Founded in Chicago in 1950 by Eero Saarinen and Charles and Ray Eames, GOOD DESIGN remains the oldest and most established awards program for the most innovative and visionary new product design worldwide. For almost 60 years now, the Award has been given to everything and anything from a NASA space ship to a paper clip. In 2008, over 500 new product designs and graphics from over 33 nations were recognized with the distinguished GOOD DESIGN Award. The world’s most prominent FORTUNE 500 companies use the GOOD DESIGN logo in the branding of their products, which has become a strong and effective mark of public recognition of Design Excellence globally.

Past winners of the Museum’s historic program can be viewed at The Chicago Athenaeum’s website: www.chi-athenaeum.org.

In 2009 and on the eve of the 60-year anniversary of GOOD DESIGN, The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies (based in Dublin, Ireland) initiated a special edition of GREEN GOOD DESIGN AWARDS 2009.

GREEN GOOD DESIGN to focus on the most important new international products and buildings and construction and planning projects that are leading the global way to a design that is fully sustainable and compatible with the highest standards of good environment.

Landscape architecture, urban planning, architecture, and industrial and product designs from over twenty-three (23) nations were awarded in this first-year program: “Build A Better World Now.” Designs for buildings and products that emphasize the most advanced “Green Approach” and the most sophisticated methods and technology to make the most positive impact on the environment were cited and awarded.

The 108 awarded buildings and products for 2009 are to be exhibited at The European Centre’s Contemporary Space Athens (46-48 Megalou Vassilias, Rouf-Athens, Greece) July 8-August 31, 2009 and then form a traveling exhibition in Europe and The United States through 2010. The European Centre will publish the results in a special catalogue available in fall.

All 108 GREEN GOOD DESIGN awarded building and product designs for 2009 can be viewed at The European Centre’s website: www.europeanarch.eu.

Cited governments and institutions for GREEN GOOD DESIGN 2009 include: Town of Nachod in Czech Republic; Government of Greece; Government of The Netherlands; Chicago Park District; City of Amsterdam; International Polar Foundation in Brussels; World Wildlife Federation in Rome and Zeist, The Netherlands; Dublin City Council; University of Cork; U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency; U.S. General Services Administration; U.S. National Park Service; City of Seattle; and Tulane University.

“We initiated this special Green Edition of the annual GOOD DESIGN program to emphasize the most profound and enlightening developments in this new world era of design for sustainability,” states Kieran Conlon, Director/COO, The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies from his office in Dublin, Ireland.

“In partnership with The Chicago Athenaeum, the idea is to bring into the international forefront the most important advances, pioneering design, management, manufacturing and building processes that can improve the world’s environmental quality and product quality while lowering the world’s environment and toxic discharges, minimizing the use of non-renewable resources, and reducing the use of renewable resources to sustainable levels,” Mr. Conlon added. “This is a public education outreach program of paramount purpose at a time when countries like the United States are changing their environmental perspective. We specially were interested in on focusing on industry, new technology, government, and the public.”

Hundreds of submissions from around the world were submitted for this first edition of GREEN GOOD DESIGN by architects,

developers, product designers, manufacturers, organizations, foundations, and general public. The submissions were reviewed and awarded by a jury comprised of the European Centre’s International Advisory Committee—leading experts in the fields of architecture, design, real-estate, and manufacturing from Europe, the United States, and Japan.

For GREEN GOOD DESIGN 2009, the entire nation of Sweden was awarded as the most “Green” country in the world and for the country’s lead in policies concerning energy consumption, waste management, green design research, life cycle impacts, commerce and industry, carbon footprinting, corporate responsibility, and public education.

The Headquarters for the Council of The European Union by Philppe Samyn and Partners in Brussels and Studio Valle Progettazioni Architects in Rome is a superb extension and refurbishment of the Residence Palace Building built between 1922 and 1927 that converts the L-shaped building into a glass “cube.” The new double façade, made of a harmonized patchwork of re-used wooden windows with simple crystal like single glazing becomes an acoustic barrier that offers thermal insulation while providing sustainable regeneration. Philippe Samyn’s International Polar Foundation Belgian Antarctic Base Prince Elisabeth takes a sustainable development approach with the intergration of renewable energy sources, optimsation of energy flows, optimization of materials and total waste management integrated into the design for the new research station located at 72° S 23E on the northern ridge of the Utsteinen Nunatak in the Sør Rondane Mountains of Antarctica.

Leading the awarded Green Products are new designs for furniture, lighting, washing machines, refrigerators, overs and cooktops, dishwashers, floorcovering, and packaging design that forward the principals of regeneration, energy efficiency, ecological

consequence, deforestation , and renewable energy while providing the latest and most innovative design.

“GOOD DESIGN” is not about color, style, impression, or trends but instead about thoughtfully considering the use and user of the product or building, the experience, the social and environmental context, and the impact a building or object has on the surrounding environment,” states Christian K. Narkiewicz-Laine, the Finnish architect and architecture and design critic and curator of the

historic GOOD DESIGN program. “Green Design is GOOD DESIGN. No design can be considered good design unless it attempts to address all these concerns. We believe in the original modernist ideology of the original GOOD DESIGN program as forwarded by Saarinen and Eames in 1950 that form and function are intertwined in design. Style and substance are not mutually exclusive.

Buildings and products are environmental,” he adds.

“Our current civilization,” states Mr. Narkiewicz-Laine, “is on the verge of the next revolution, larger than the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century, in order to find and make our world the most sustainable and more energy-efficient and to eliminate negative environmental impact completely through skillful, sensitive design. GREEN GOOD DESIGN will blazon that international path.”

The deadline for submissions for the 2010 GREEN GOOD DESIGN Awards is November 1, 2009.

Applications for 2010 and more information is available on line at The European Centre’s website: www.europeanarch.eu

For more inforation contact Lary Sommers at The Chicago Athenaeum at +1/815-777-4444 or by email